A few weeks ago at HICSA, India’s most important hotel investment conference, Manav Thadani, who runs HVS, the organisation behind HICSA, presented Ajit Kerkar with a lifetime achievement award.

I usually end each year or begin the following one by listing all the food trends I have observed over the last 12 months. This year, for reasons too tedious to recount, I neglected to do such a piece ...

Should Rahul Gandhi have been critical of the way things are in today’s India when he spoke in the UK? Does this amount to asking white people to colonise India as some BJP supporters have suggested?

If I asked you to name the most famous north Indian restaurant in the world, my guess is that you would pick the obvious contender: Bukhara. And, by and large, most people would agree with you. It’s ...

A lot of nonsense is spoken about food in India. But in no area are the myths and misconceptions as prevalent as they are in the case of vegetarian and non-vegetarian food habits. People still like to ...

If you have been following the furore over the price of tomatoes, you will note that reporters and political analysts often refer to tomatoes as a basic staple of Indian cooking and the food of the ...

Think of a luxury hotel in the 1990s. Now think of one today --- the same one, even. What are the differences? Well, the hotel is probably more tech-savvy now and brags about its Wifi speed. And it ...

There are now more luxury hotels in the world than ever before. Part of the reason for the growth in the deluxe hotel sector is the prosperity of the 21st Century. But I still think that global demand ...

The first time I had an authentic Peking Duck in India was at the Great Wall restaurant at the Leela Palace in Mumbai twenty years ago. I was having lunch with Captain CP Krishnan Nair, the Leela ...

Many people on Twitter marked an article from the Hindustan Times to me. The piece was a summary of a report by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and had an irresistible headline: “Samosa ...

It’s a question I get asked again and again. And though I nearly always give the same answer, it never seems to satisfy people. It’s a hard question to answer. In most cities, food exists at different ...

Almost everything you think you know about Morocco is either out of date or a complete lie. Take Casablanca. Those of us who have heard of the city know it from the classic Hollywood movie starring ...